Smoke on the Water Read online

  Needing a distraction, he moved to that stack and shuffled through them. Sure enough, one of those files was Willow’s.

  “You’re my patient,” he said.

  “Yep.” The crunch of the apple punctuated the word.

  “So is Mary.”

  “Okay.” More apple-crunching.

  Sebastian turned. “You said you don’t really know her, but—”

  Willow held up her hand. “She likes me. Oddly, I kind of like her.”

  “She’s dangerous.”

  “So am I.” Willow took a last bite of her apple and tossed the core into his trash.

  Sebastian glanced at the stack of files again, his fingers itching to rifle though hers, but that would be rude. At least while she was watching.

  “You can read it if you want.”

  What was up with the mind reading? He didn’t like it.

  “It’s nice of you to befriend Mary, however…”

  He couldn’t tell Willow what Mary was in for. Privacy rules abounded. But what if the voice—Roland—told Mary to kill Willow too?

  Though Mary had said she shouldn’t have listened when the voice told her to kill her son, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t rethink the decision if it told her to kill someone else. Those imaginary head voices were notoriously persuasive, as well as fickle. Today one might ask you to kill your child. Tomorrow the same one, or perhaps another, might decide any stranger would do.

  Sebastian had worked in psychiatric facilities for years. A lot of the patients heard voices, a lot more of them were homicidal, but he’d never been consumed by the urge to share privileged information before like he was right now.

  “I know why Mary’s here,” Willow said.

  Sebastian had heard that trick before. He wasn’t biting. If she knew, she could tell him. “Why?”

  “Attempted murder.” Willow picked up a sandwich, took off the wrapping and tossed it after the apple core.

  “You don’t seem worried.”

  Her ocean-blue gaze flicked to his, then back to the triangle of bread and what appeared to be ham and cheese. “Listen, you’re going to read my file, so I may as well tell you that I’m in here for the same reason.”

  “You tried to kill your son?”

  She’d just opened her mouth to take a bite. Instead, she closed her mouth without doing so. “Mary tried to kill her son?”

  Shit. Sebastian had thought he was so smart he’d never fall for a leading question, then he’d dived right off that cliff. The idea of Willow having a son had surprised, and disturbed him, so much, he’d blurted his question before he could even think of holding it back. What business was it of his if she’d been married and had a child, or even if she hadn’t been?

  Well, it was his business, but only in relation to how that status affected why she was here and if she might ever get out.

  “I can’t—” he began. “I shouldn’t have—”

  She held up her hand again. “Don’t sweat it, doc, I won’t tell.”

  Her not telling anyone about his gaffe didn’t make his gaffe any less wrong. But that was water under the bridge now.

  Water. He straightened, the movement causing the edge of the desk to dig into his backside, but he ignored the uncomfortable sensation as another one took its place.

  Mary had said that Willow saw visions in the water. Was that Mary’s delusion or Willow’s?

  “I didn’t try to kill my son,” she said. “I don’t have one. I have no family at all.”

  “Everyone has a family.”

  “No.” She set the sandwich down untasted. “Everyone has parents. But not everyone has a family. I learned the difference a long time ago.”

  Thunder rumbled—distant but threatening. The sky had gone a nasty, swirly greenish-blue. As Sebastian had just ridden a Harley for several hundred miles, he’d studied the weather along his route. There hadn’t been a hint of rain for the next week. Not that he trusted meteorologists. They’d have better accuracy if they read tea leaves.

  “I should go.”

  He tore his gaze from the storm, which seemed to be hovering, billowing, not moving, something that storms didn’t do. Storms meant wind and wind caused movement. But this storm … not so much. He didn’t like it.

  Willow stood at the same time Sebastian did, and then they were so close he should have stepped back, would have, except the desk was there. She lifted her face. He wanted to lower his—maybe he even did, but he managed not to touch her. Nevertheless, if someone walked in, this would look very bad.

  “You didn’t drink your milk,” he said inanely.

  “I hate milk.”

  “I’ll get you some water.”

  Her eyes widened. Lightning flashed, much closer than it should be. There was a crack, a snap, then a pop, and the lights, the computers—everything—went off. The loss of power caused a momentary silence that was so deep it hummed.

  Then patients started shrieking, employees started shouting, Zoe opened the connecting door calling his name.

  Sebastian reached for Willow, and his hands closed on nothing but air.

  *

  I slipped out of the doctor’s office while he was distracted, then slid into the commotion that filled the hall.

  As weird as that storm coming out of nowhere was, weirder still had been that the backup generator hadn’t gone on. In northern Wisconsin we had all kinds of storms—wind, rain, tornadoes, thunder, snow and ice. A backup generator was a necessity. One that worked, even more so.

  But that wasn’t my main concern—wasn’t even my concern, I didn’t work here. My biggest worry was first stilling the annoyance that bordered on anger over my lack of family, then slowing the overburdened pumping of my heart that had come from Dr. Frasier’s offer of water. I’d never be able to convince him that I was getting better if I got mad when we discussed my past and I nearly stroked out at the mention of H2O.

  “Willow!” Mary stood in the doorway of her room. As she wasn’t wearing a straitjacket, I figured it was all right for me to join her.

  “You scared?” I asked.

  She took my hand, nodded.

  “They’ll get the power back on soon.”

  She drew me into her room. “No.”

  “They won’t?”

  “I’m not scared of the dark.”

  Being midday it wasn’t really dark, though the gloom outside looked suspiciously like twilight.

  She went to the window, and as I was still holding her hand, I went too. Though it had bars like every other window in the place, they were far enough apart that we could see through.

  “The sky was blue,” she said, “then suddenly it wasn’t.”

  “Storms can come up pretty fast.”

  “Not like this. Never like this.”

  “Okay,” I said. I’d never seen one do it either, but as it had happened, then it could happen.

  “Someone cast a spell,” she whispered.

  Aha.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Is he coming?” Her voice remained low, as if afraid “he” might hear.

  “Who?”

  “Roland.” Her fingers tightened around mine.

  “Who is Roland?”

  “Their leader.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Venatores Mali.”

  “Latin?” Because of my nursing ambitions, I’d studied the language a little, knew the sound if not the meaning.

  “Hunters of evil. Though we aren’t. They hunt us. They brand us. We burn.”

  A chill rippled over me. I let go of her hand. The words brand and burn were far too familiar. “They hunt who?”

  “Witches.”

  Considering the us, I should have known.

  “Why?”

  “They hate.”

  Hate plus witch historically equaled burn. I’d said the same to Peggy, though I had been referring to a bygone century. Who would be hunting witches now?

  No one. I was listening to and believing
Crazy Mary, two things I should not do.

  “They want to purify us. But they are the ones who aren’t pure.”

  “Purify how?”

  While I shouldn’t be listening, I couldn’t stop, and when she answered me, I knew that I wouldn’t.

  “The brand.”

  My vision rose up—the scent of burning flesh, the sizzle, the smell. I swallowed, and I tasted it too. Who was crazy now?

  “What brand?” I managed, voice hoarse, as if I’d been breathing in a lot of smoke.

  “Their crest is the snarling wolf.”

  Lightning flashed, so close, so bright, I saw stars. I glanced out the window just as the rain hit, thunking against the glass like a hundred tiny birds.

  A drop ran downward, joined with another and then another, and within them I saw a whole new world.

  Chapter 4

  A woman stood in a clearing in the woods. The trees were mammoth—pine, some birch. Looked like Wisconsin, but I couldn’t be sure.

  The moon glinted off the two-edged blade in her hand. Shaped like a Z, it appeared to have carving on the handle, though I couldn’t tell from this distance—both time and space—what it was.

  I’d never seen her before. She was very tall—six feet at least. Her dark hair waved past her butt. Considering her height, that was a lot of hair.

  The undergrowth rustled. Her lips curved. I didn’t like that smile a bit. She had evil things on her mind, and she liked them.

  A big, ugly dude with a shaved head strode out of the trees. Over his shoulder he hauled a woman, bound and gagged and struggling. Didn’t seem like she wanted to be here any more than I did, and she had about as much choice in the matter as I did as well.

  The tall woman pointed with her knife at the large flat stone that shone beneath the moon. It resembled a pagan altar, even before the man laid his burden on top.

  Middle-aged, dark hair, brown eyes—I didn’t know her either. She started to scramble off the stone, but with her ankles and wrists tied, then the big guy guarding one side and the big gal the other, the effort was mostly for show.

  I figured there’d be chanting and other ritualistic oddities. Instead, the man picked up what appeared to be a meat cleaver, lifted it high over his head, then brought it down.

  I tried to scream and couldn’t. My throat worked, yet not a sound emerged. I’m sure we’ve all had dreams like that. We usually wake ourselves up with the strangled noises we make. I didn’t. At least not soon enough. Not before I saw—

  I came out of the vision gasping as if I’d been underwater almost too long. Mary held my hand. The rain still fell. I closed my eyes, turned away.

  There’d been so damn much blood.

  Mary led me to a chair, pushed me into it, went to her knees at my side. “Where was it?”

  “Where was what?”

  “The forest? The altar?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You saw?”

  Maybe she was a witch.

  “As soon as I took your hand.”

  Or maybe I was.

  My laugh sounded slightly hysterical. Not only was Mary starting to share my delusions, I was starting to share hers.

  I didn’t follow the tenets of Wicca, hadn’t even learned them yet, and witchcraft was a skill set I didn’t have. Spells? Rituals? I knew nothing about them. But maybe the man and the woman in my vision had.

  “Were those witches?” I asked.

  Though the idea of Mary seeing what I had should freak me out, instead I was kind of glad. I wasn’t alone anymore.

  “Witches harm none.”

  “I thought that was Wicca.”

  Mary waved her hand as if a fly buzzed around her head. “I think those were witch hunters.”

  “Venatores Mali,” I murmured. “Which would make the woman lying on the stone a witch.”

  “We have to figure out where they were. Who they were.”

  “Why?”

  “To stop it!”

  “We’re incarcerated.”

  “What’s the point of a vision if you can’t do anything about it?”

  I’d been asking myself that since I’d understood I was having them.

  “No one will believe us.” Even if they did, a stone altar in “some” forest wasn’t going to get them very far.

  “Try again.” Mary pointed to the window. The storm had blown past, but there were still droplets on the glass.

  I went back where I’d been, tried as hard to see something now as I’d tried to scream about what I’d seen before. I had the same amount of luck. The drops were just drops.

  “I got nothin’.”

  “Try harder.”

  I’d never been able to have a vision by trying. Never been able to stop having one by trying either. Visions were funny that way. Or maybe funny wasn’t the right word.

  Annoying? Terrifying? Excruciating? Pick one.

  Mary laced our fingers together and tugged. “Let’s run water in the tub.”

  I pulled back. Even though I’d told Dr. Frasier that I was as dangerous as Mary, I still didn’t feel like going into a small room with her and running enough water so that she could drown me.

  “I need to rest,” I said. “Visions are exhausting.”

  Another good word for them. I had a dozen. None of them were complimentary.

  “You can sleep on my bed.”

  From the slightly manic sheen in her eyes, I knew how that would go. She’d either stare at me and keep me awake or pace the room with the same results.

  “I’ll go back to my own.” She released me reluctantly, but she did it. I paused at her door. “Don’t tell anyone what we saw.”

  “Not until we see something that’ll help.”

  That wasn’t what I’d meant, but it would do.

  So far I’d never seen anything helpful.

  *

  “Freakiest storm I can remember.”

  The maintenance man, who’d introduced himself as Justice Finkel, was old enough for his observation to really mean something. He appeared to know how to fix a generator, or he was at least doing a good imitation.

  Sebastian handed him a Philips screwdriver upon request. He was just glad the rain had stopped and the creepy green clouds had disappeared. From the utter silence of the machine and the decrepit appearance, they were going to be out here a while. He hoped the staff was able to quiet the patients. When he’d walked outside, the door closing behind him had cut off the sight and sound of bedlam. He’d searched for Willow amid the chaos—hadn’t seen her or Mary. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  “Isn’t the purpose of a generator to go on when the power goes off?” Sebastian asked.

  “Yeah.” Justice squinted into the motor, which gave off an odd but vaguely familiar smell.

  “What’s its excuse?” Sebastian pointed to the machine with a hammer that he was trying his best not to use on the still-silent generator.

  “It’s not talkin’, but I’m thinking lightning strike.” Justice sat back. “This thing is toast.”

  Sebastian sniffed again and got a whiff of … not burned bread but ozone, with a hint of gasoline. They were lucky the whole place hadn’t gone up in flames. Probably would have if the building weren’t made of stone.

  Sebastian gave in to temptation and smacked the flat of the hammer on the corroded shell of the junk generator. Justice didn’t seem disturbed by his lack of control. Justice didn’t seem disturbed by much—a good trait for an employee of a mental health facility. Sebastian wished he could say the same about himself.

  He set the hammer back in the man’s huge toolbox. “Now what?”

  “I’ll get another.”

  “When?”

  “An hour. Two if the first store’s out and I have to go to a different one.”

  “Isn’t there a Walmart around the corner?” After riding a motorcycle from Missouri to Wisconsin, he swore there’d been one around most of the corners.

  Justice rubbed his dirty palms on his da
mp jeans. “There is. But the corner’s probably twenty miles away.”

  This far north the next town—or the next corner—was not as close as it was anywhere else except maybe Alaska. His own apartment was in a complex that had been specifically built for employees of this facility. If the job worked out and Sebastian stayed here for more than a year, he’d like a house. Except he’d been told a house of his own would most likely involve building one since houses in the area were scarce and empty ones available for purchase even more so.

  “Maybe you should buy two generators,” Sebastian said.

  “What for?”

  “What if the next one gets hit in the next storm?”

  Sebastian didn’t care for the lack of power. Although this place was old enough to have locks that needed keys, rather than electrical doors and fences, he still felt twitchy. All he needed was an escaped patient on his first day of work. On any day of work for that matter.

  “Lightning don’t strike twice in the same place, son. You know that.”

  It was a saying, sure, but did that make it true? Justice seemed to think so and Justice knew more than Sebastian did. At least about lightning storms and generators.

  The old man headed for his truck, and Sebastian for his office. Inside the patients were quieter than they’d been when he’d left—Sebastian checked his phone—a half hour ago.

  He beckoned to Zoe. “Any problems?”

  She shrugged. “Anything out of the ordinary gets them riled up.”

  “They seem fine to me.”

  “Those who don’t unrile on their own are given pharmaceutical help.”

  Sebastian would prefer less drugs not more. However, a riot in the dark didn’t work for him either.

  “My patient?” he asked.

  “Which one?”

  “The one I was talking to when this happened.” The one who had seemed to disappear into thin air.

  Zoe cast him an unreadable glance—mostly because the sky was still overcast and the lights were still out. He could barely see her let alone read her glance.

  “Last I saw Willow she was coming out of Mary’s room and headed for her own.” Her lips thinned. “You should be careful.”